


before the horns are blown

by charleybradburies



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Arya-centric, Awkward Romance, Awkwardness, Canon Het Relationship, Confessions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Related, F/M, Feelings, Friends to Lovers, I Blame Tumblr, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I Was Drunk When I Wrote This, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Kissing, Not Canon Compliant, One Shot, POV Gendry, Post-Coital, Pre-Battle, Promises, Season/Series 08, Teasing, so excited to tag that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-25 20:08:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18581686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charleybradburies/pseuds/charleybradburies
Summary: Arya gets unexpectedly emotional in the middle of the night.[post-episode 2+ pre-episode 3post-parentage reveal + pre-battle*]*edited because for whatever reason my brain pretended that the very end of episode 2 just didn't happen - AU where everyone gets a nice night of sleeping or whatever*





	before the horns are blown

**Author's Note:**

> [my drunken google docs title: **oh no they've got feelings** ]
> 
> Also: my drunken ass did **not** realize they were sleeping in the supply room, and they're in a bed.
> 
> Please enjoy, kudos, and comment!!

Gendry wakes softly in the middle of the night, unsure of the cause at first and immediately distracted by the recognition that Arya was here, next to him: her messed-up bun close enough to his face for him to know it, the rest of her hair splayed out on the makeshift pillow next to his, her lovely naked body tucked underneath the blanket and furs with him, the front of her facing away from him. There’s enough light in the room to see her, but it’s not very much. They’d only made their way to an actual bed after they were spent and tired, after all.

And then he realizes she’s not sleeping anymore, either. 

She’s crying.

Very, very quietly. Yet somehow he knows it from the way her back shifts upwards ever so slightly, by the small noises she does make, so different than those he’d gotten from her hours before. 

He shouldn’t think about being underneath - let alone inside - her while she’s crying, so he tries to forget the comparison. It makes him feel warmer on the inside anyway. If they never got anything else, they’d had one night to themselves, and they’d both rather enjoyed how they’d spent it. 

She sniffles, loudly enough that she must know he can hear her - and she does.

“I didn’t mean for you to notice,” she says a moment later, barely a whisper but as full of grief as if she’d yelled it, though the words themselves are not. “Or to...be feeling things. I just...I -”

She chokes on the words, and stops. With no other idea what he could do, he leans a little bit forward and slowly presses a kiss on the back of her shoulder. She tenses with one breath and then releases herself in another, and she continues.

“I came home because I wanted to live. Life has been filled with more and more death ever since they - and I came home for what’s left of my family and - and home is...full of death.” 

She wipes away tears, awkwardly moving her hand to her chest afterwards as if to feel her heart. He pulls his arm out from under the furs and starts to wrap it around her, not knowing anything to say but hoping to be able to be more comforting. She starts to move, and he expects she’ll stop him, but she grabs his arm and holds it against herself, clasping their hands together right at the scar on her stomach. He scoots in closer behind her, and the extra warmth against his chest from the contact is more than welcome, but he does have to will himself to ignore that they’re still naked. Her voice gets even softer, and more peaceful, though her words are in contrast with it.

“All the living people I...care about the most, all here, and...we might all not see tomorrow night. It’s not just _us_ , I know it isn’t, but I…” 

Her voice fades out, but she grips his hand tighter. He kisses her shoulder again, and this time she lets out a light but contented sigh. 

Then, she pulls their hands away from her body, awkwardly keeping them clasped together as she turns around to face him. He grins, almost chuckling but not daring. She lays their arms between them, their hands between their chests, and then fumbles to pull some of the furs over herself. For warmth, not modesty, he silently hopes - though if she wants modesty, he’s not going to be the one to stop her from seeking it. 

She lays still and silent again, for a moment that feels like it might never end. 

“I can’t stand that after everything we’ve all been through, I might lose...everything, every _one_. Never see Jon or Bran or Sansa again. Never…”

Her breath is warm against his face, even as she pauses, and he can see a tear formed at her eye, ready to drop at a moment’s notice. 

“Never have another night...like this, never...more.”

She trembles, closing her eyes for a second, and the tear falls. He’d seen so much of her this night, but the nervousness they’d shared about laying together could not compare to the vulnerability she gave him now. He hates to see her hurting, hates knowing he can’t fix it even more, but it feels like a gift from her all the same.

He wasn’t entirely sure what she meant by more, but he desperately wanted to give it to her - and more and more and even more - and yet tonight, she’s the one who’s giving him so much.

“I thought...I convinced myself I’d stopped being really _afraid_ of death. By being so close to it, by crossing off names...it’s inevitable, I know, but now...I’m _scared_ , Gendry. I’ve got too much to lose and I…” 

She stops there, as though she’s run out of words.

“Then I guess that means we _have_ to win,” Gendry says, with as much conviction as he can muster, though he fears much the same as she must. Arya meets his eyes, first with surprise and then with a tiny smile, and he pulls their hands up to his mouth, kissing the back of hers. She waits a few seconds before pulling them a couple inches back towards herself. 

“You can have as many of my nights as you want when we do,” he adds, and she puts her other hand flat against his chest, tapping her fingers absentmindedly against him. 

“Only the nights?” she questions, nervousness creeping into the tone he knows she intends to be teasing, and he wonders if he shouldn’t have added that.

“No, not only the nights,” he answers, and Arya leans a bit closer, a pleasant surprise with a twinkle back in her eyes, though she still looks like she might cry. She also might kiss him, though, so he stays quiet.

“We don’t even...really...know each other, anymore,” she says, anxiety clear again in her eyes, although her tone reminds him of when she was showing off earlier, like she’s trying to intimidate her way into his desirous thoughts, and succeeding. “You don’t know what I am now.”

The memory of the dragonglass flying by him comes to mind. 

“Well, we know...enough,” he fumbles. _Enough to know we wanted to lay with each other._ Gendry doesn’t fill in those words, but he’s sure she reads him. The ones he does say are surely awkward enough.

“And we can look forward to _really_ knowing each other. Even better than before.”

She sighs, and he’s not sure of what’s behind it, let alone if that pleased her. It must have, in some way, because she doesn’t move away, only moves her gaze up towards the wall by their heads. 

“You really think we’ll live.” She presents it as a statement, with some surprise behind it and her eyes wide open, but there’s still a question there. He certainly has his doubts, but he’s not quite enough of an idiot to share those particular thoughts, especially as he wants to think about the dead as little as possible before he absolutely needs to. 

“I _have_ to hope, at least. Otherwise, I mean...if we don’t think we can win, why are we even fighting?”

“It’s human nature to fight,” she offers without hesitation. “Besides, _some_ of us are far too stubborn to die without one.”

“Aye, that does sound about right.” 

They share a small chuckle, and he notes that she seems to have moved her head closer, closely enough now that he could kiss her without straining, but she purses her lips like she’s thinking of something to say, so he waits, hoping he doesn’t spend so much time waiting that he barely gets to do it again. 

“Gendry?” she says, serious again and looking straight at him. 

“Arya,” he returns.

“Be too stubborn to die.”

Her voice is firm, but there’s a tenderness in it that he’s woefully unprepared to hear, and suddenly he’s all out of potential reactions, until one comes to him, a small bow of his head along with it.

“As my lady commands.”

She smirks, then glances down like Gendry had caught her off guard with that. He catches her again.

“Arya?”

“Gendry.” 

“You do the same.”

Arya opens her mouth, but doesn’t reply immediately. He clenches his jaw and keeps himself from kissing her as she returns to a smirk.

“Is that a command, milord?” 

_Seven hells._

He scoffs. “I’m not a lord, I don’t think I will be, and I won’t pretend I can _command_ you. I am _asking_...strongly.”

Arya lets go of her smirk for a light laugh, then leans into him, stopping far too close for him to keep from another kiss for long. 

“Then I guess that means we have to win,” she murmurs, her breath warm against and inside his mouth, and beats him to the kiss another time.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [after winter's king is fallen](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18661804) by [charleybradburies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/charleybradburies/pseuds/charleybradburies)




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